There are several forms of cutting tools wherein a plurality of teeth, or cutting elements, move along a surface to make a cut. These teeth or cutting elements, are mounted on different types of cutting machines including rotary saws, gang, or reciprocating saws, and chain saws. The rotary saws have large blades, ranging up to 3500 mm in diameter with a thickness in the vicinity of 9 mm. The reciprocating saws have blades up to 8000 mm long with a thickness around 10 mm. In all the above mentioned cutting machines, the stone cutting is accomplished by the teeth or cutting elements arranged along the cutting edge of the blade. The cutting elements are formed of metal-bonded diamond particles, so that the diamond particles do the actual cutting of the stone. Thus, as the diamond particles are worn away, the cutting elements must be replaced with new cutting elements.
The conventional technique for replacing the cutting elements is to remove the remains of the old cutting elements, and weld or otherwise bond new cutting elements to the blade. These techniques require heat, which may warp or unbalance the saw blade requiring extensive reworking of the blade. Additionally, the entire cutting blade must frequently be shipped long distances because the diamond industry and the stone cutting industry are vastly removed from each other geographically.
Because of the above discussed difficulties, there have been some efforts at providing easily removable and replaceable cutting elements for stone cutting saws and the like. These efforts have been largely unsuccessful both because of the difficulty in providing a suitable mechanical structure, and because of the limitation in the cutting tools caused by the particular form of removable cutting elements. The prior art removable cutting elements have normally required a rather complex mechanical arrangement, and have usually required considerable thickness in the saw to achieve the necessary strength in the mounting structure. Furthermore, the prior art removable cutting elements have been adapted for use on only one type of cutting machine, and cannot be used on other types.